[Etym. obscure. Widely diffused in Eng. dial. from Northumb. and Cumb. to Cornwall, and occasional in literature. More frequent in U. S. (in form kilter).] Good condition, order; state of health or spirits. Used in the phrases out of kelter, in (good, high) kelter, to get into kelter.
α. 1643. R. Williams, Key Lang. Amer., 177. Their Gunnes they … often sell many a score to the English, when they are a little out of frame or Kelter.
1674. Ray, S. & E. Country Words, 69. Kelter or Kilter, Frame, order.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., vi. Wks. 1716, I. 50. If the organs of Prayer are out of kelter, or out of tune, how can we pray?
1722. in Connect. Col. Rec. (1872), VI. 335. Mending, cleansing and keeping in good kelter the firelocks left with his Honour.
1828. Scott, Jrnl., 20 May. The rest are in high kelter.
1875. Contemp. Rev., XXV. 262. Some part of her [Dresden] internal economy is chronically out of kelter.
β. a. 1657. Bradford, Plymouth Plant. (1856), 235. Nether durst they scarce handle a gune … ye very sight of one (though out of kilter) was a terrour unto them.
1681. in New Eng. Mag. (1898), June, 450/1. The seats some burned and others out of kilter.
1862. Lowell, Lett., I. 359. I must rest awhile. My brain is out of kilter.
1883. J. Hawthorne, Dust, I. 16. There’s something awkward here…. A joint out of kilter perhaps.
1893. Stevenson, Let. C. Baxter, 19 July, in Lett. Fam., etc. II. 300. I … am miserably out of heart and out of kilter.
